Joseph David Coppock was an external examiner for the honors economic theory examination at Swarthmore. The economics department called on their alumnus (A.B., 1933 with a Columbia University Ph.D., 1940) at least three times in the 1940s. His January 1947 examination questions are transcribed for this post.
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Swarthmore Senior exams posted previously (with external examiner names)
Senior Comprehensive Examination (1931)
Wolfgang Stolper (Seminar, ca. 1944)
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[Handwritten note: “Examiner: Coppock”]
Swarthmore College
Honors Examination
Economic Theory
January 29, 1947.
Answer 5 questions, including No. 1
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- Using your own arithmetic assumptions, derive an individual buyer’s demand curve from a set of (consumer) indifference curves. Show both schedule and graph.
- Using your own arithmetic assumptions, derive an individual producer’s variable cost curve from a traditional “diminishing physical returns curve.” Show both schedule and graph.
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- How, under classical distribution theory, would an increase in national product be distributed among the customary claimants? Explain.
- To what extent does your answer in (a) apply to present-day circumstances in the U. S.?
- Write an explanatory and critical essay on the relation of the interest rate to the level of investment in the national economy (a) under any conditions you may wish to assume and (b) under present-day conditions in the U. S.
- Suppose you were David Ricardo and received from the review editor of an economic journal a copy of Chamberlin’s Theory of Monopolistic Competition with a request to review it. Write a review, comparing Chamberlin’s book with your own Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.
- The First Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers states:
“It would be very simple indeed if we could rely on fiscal policy as a panacea (for unemployment). Broadly speaking, the shortcoming of this single-track doctrine….is that it does not face the complexity of our economic system.”
Develop the point.
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- What is economic progress?
- What are the conditions of it?
- What does a change in population have to do with it?
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- Point out some key differences between general equilibrium and particular [sic] equilibrium theory.
- How do these differences affect the application of economic theory to the real economic world?
Source: Duke University. David M. Rubinstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Wolfgang F. Stolper Papers, Box 22, Folder 1.
Image Source: Swarthmore College yearbook, Halcyon 1940, p. 11.